This Is A Public Service Announcement: Stop Backing The Browns

I’ve been meaning to write this article for some time, but the amount of professional bettors and groups that continue to back The Cleveland Browns week after week has finally gotten me there. In a past article, I wrote about for whatever reason, bettors like to make life harder on themselves than it needs to be. Bettors, especially professional ones, week after week are dumping money into the Cleveland Browns and for the life of me, I just don’t understand it.

Whether your a recreational bettor or even are just in a weekly office pool, people continuously make the conscious decision to even take the time to break down and give Cleveland Browns games the full handicap it deserves. There was no better example of this last week against The Detroit Lions where bettors, and ones that I have the utmost respect for at that, talked themselves into backing The Cleveland Browns, again.

I want to be very clear about this, There is no spot good enough, no advanced metric tasty enough, no trend in the world that supports putting money into this team. In just the last two weeks, Cleveland has been spotted a 6-0 lead against Minnesota in London and failed to cover even the first half spread, let alone the full game number. Last week against Detroit, which I heard all week about how it was a great spot for them, off the bye week, jumped out to a 10-0 lead against Detroit, and you guessed it, failed to even cover the first half number of +6.5, let alone the full game number. I hate to sound harsh here or like I’m Monday morning quarterbacking this without evidence, so let’s dig into some numbers here. You can’t quantify running a quarterback sneak from the 5-yard line with no timeouts left with 10 seconds left in the first half.

Rather than trying to thread a needle and pinpoint the perfect scenario week after week to justify why Cleveland is worthy of a bet. If you had simply wagered $100 against Cleveland this season on the full game spread, you would be 7-2, up $480:

If that’s not enough for you, had you taken it a step further and bet against them on the first half spread as well, you would be 6-3 for another $270 dollars. If math isn’t your strong suit, If you bet against Cleveland every game both first half and full game against the spread, you would be 13-5 for $750 based on $100 dollar bets.

If just this season isn’t a big enough sample size for you and you’re convinced Cleveland is going to come out of this slump, let’s take it even further back to last season.

You guessed it, The Cleveland Browns are the worst team against the spread (and straight up) over the last year and a half. Again, had you faded them blindly every game last season and this one, you would be 19-6 for right around +1,3000 based on a $100 bet. Add a zero, and you get the idea of the type of secondary income you would have just betting against them. That’s $13,000. and that’s not even taking into account the first half numbers of last season. Moreover; This isn’t even taking into account the free teaser leg every single week excluding one in the last two seasons that would have come home. The same goes for money lines.

Still not good enough for you? Let’s take a look since 2015.

I really hate to sound like I’m bashing people who week after week think they are making the right play. The thing is, Cleveland even outgained Detroit last week, started the game up 10-0, and still couldn’t cover a double-digit spread. I don’t care what the metrics say, I don’t care how good of a spot it looks like. The Cleveland Browns market has still not caught up to how bad they are, and I don’t know that it will anytime soon because professional bettors seem happy they are making this bet week after week, trusting the process, and trusting their numbers. I’m telling you right now, This team is worse than any number or metric can ever indicate.

I literally had text messages and phone calls that read the following, “I would make that bet 100 times out of 100 again.” to “I’ve just got to trust the numbers.” and “I’m on them again this week.” What am I missing that it became acceptable to start your handicapping with a 24% cover ratio? I don’t mean to offend anyone by any stretch, I’m honest to god just at a loss for words at this point. Professionals can have them because it’s fact, not opinion that laying whatever point spread is given to me is profitable. This is even before teaser and money lines against. Sharps can have this one. They consistently will try to look like they are the smartest people in the room, being perfectly fine with taking 7 losses to be the only people on The Browns for the two wins. I don’t know about you, but I value money over ego in this business.

DeShone Kizer is the worst quarterback in the NFL and he’s being coached by the worst coaches in the NFL. Yes, they look like they are playing hard, but that’s like saying the slowest kid tried his hardest in a playground race. There is no excuse for burning more money on Cleveland this season. The thing about this as well is that I actually think they have a solution in-house to make them competent. Cody Kessler passes every eye test I’ve ever seen him perform on, and he actually hung with New England for a little bit last season. As long as Kizer is in there coached by this current group, please stop giving this team the respect of handicapping their games and just count your money when it’s over.

A jack of all trades, Christian got his start in the gambling industry using a model to predict players performance in daily fantasy sports. Eventually, he used that same model to cross over into NFL handicapping, specifically the prop market and honed his craft enough to cross over from player projections into every aspect of sports Handicapping. He then made the full time move to Las Vegas to become a professional sports handicapper, utilizing his knowledge of all sports including NFL, NCAA, NBA, UFC, and MLB. He's currently the resident #DFS expert on The Sports Gambling Podcast as well as managing editor.